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Sylvia Brooks

A Vocalist that sends you back in time

About Me

Sylvia Brooks, a child of jazz with stories to tell   The long and winding path that led Sylvia Brooks back to her jazz roots provided her with plenty of dramatic stories to tell. Possessing a sumptuous, velvet-rich voice, she’s earned critical raves for each of her four albums, including 2022’s Signature, which marked her emergence as a gifted songwriter. Her emotionally direct delivery imbues the music with such bracing honesty and keen emotional intelligence it shouldn’t be a surprise to find out that Brooks was an accomplished actress with numerous standout roles in television and film before she plunged back into jazz.     Born and raised in Miami, Florida, Brooks came to music as a birthright. Her father, pianist/arranger Don Ippolito, was a first-call jazz accompanist who performed with giants such as Stan Getz, Buddy Rich, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan and Dizzy Gillespie. Her mother, Johanna Dordick, was a conservatory-trained opera singer who also dazzled audiences singing standards and pop tunes at East Coast night clubs and resorts (she went on to found the Los Angeles Opera Theater in 1978)   A classically trained actress, Brooks studied at The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco under acclaimed directors Allen Fletcher and William Ball. After her well-received portrayal of Anita in a Philadelphia production of West Side Story a serious dance injury cut short her New York stage career. Returning to Los Angeles, Brooks started working in television, landing roles on a series of hit shows. On stage she played Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street at Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars and Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre.    In a fateful turn of events it was the death of her father that opened the door to her first love. In looking to have several of his original pieces played at his funeral she immersed herself in her father’s extensive archive, an experience that sparked a jazz epiphany.   Brooks launched her musical career at the Jazz Bakery. Following a series of late-night shows called Brooks before Midnight, which received six critics picks in the Los Angeles Times, she released her impressive 2009 debut, Dangerous Liaisons. The project gained international attention and announced the arrival of an impressive jazz chanteuse, earning a spot on Bob Parlocha's Top 50 jazz albums of 2009 list. Under the management of Dick LaPalm and Jim Raposa, the album garnered spins on more than 500 radio stations throughout the United States and Canada. Featuring arrangements by Tom Garvin, Grammy Award-nominated reed expert Kim Richmond, and pianist Jeff Colella the album introduced her sultry jazz-noir concept.

She ventured further into the shadows on 2012’s critically-acclaimed follow-up Restless. A collaboration with Kim Richmond, the album was selected for numerous Top Ten lists by leading jazz radio stations and featured on San Francisco’s KPOO, the first Black-owned station on the West Coast. Richmond’s lush arrangements for the aptly named Atmosphere Orchestra made brilliant use of jazz and studio heavyweights like Colella, harmonica great Ron Kalina, and violinist Jeff Gauthier.   Her third album, The Arrangement, marked a creative leap for Brooks.  Singled out as one of the top jazz vocal albums of the year by veteran producer and jazz historian Arnaldo Desouteiro, the 2017 project featured a dazzling cast of writers who designed bespoke charts tailored for Brooks’ voice. Continuing her creative relationship with Kim Richmond, she also connected with a superlative collection of pianists, including Colella, Otmaro Ruiz, Christian Jacob, and Quinn Johnson. The program selections are mostly from the Great American Songbook with a nod to the Beatles with “Eleanor Rigby.” She also wrote lyrics for three originals in collaboration with different composers, including “Maybe I’m a Fool” with the late Patrick Williams, the prolific composer/arranger who accrued 16 Grammy nominations, two Grammy Awards, four Emmys, a 1980 Oscar nomination and a 1976 Pulitzer Prize nomination.   In many ways 2022’s Signature was a logical next step toward defining herself as an artist. In writing her own songs, Brooks has clearly found her voice as an artist. The stellar rhythm section tandem of drummer Ray Brinker and bassist Trey Henry play on almost every track. Ace pianists Tom Ranier, Christian Jacob and Jeff Colella designed beguiling, harmonically rich settings for her incisive lyrics. One of L.A.’s most sought after studio musicians, Tom Ranier has toured with some of the biggest stars in jazz and popular music while also contributing to television shows and films such as Star Trek: Enterprise, Family Guy and The Simpsons and Forest Gump, Ted, and Frozen and was musical director for Dancing With the Stars. As musical director he has worked with Barbra Streisand and Tony Bennett, accompanying him and Lady Gaga on the Grammy Award-winning album Love For Sale. 

A seven-time Grammy Award nominee, Christian Jacob created the original score for Clint Eastwood’s 2016 box- office smash Sully and Eastwood's film The 15:17 to Paris. Jeff Colella has accompanied many of the era’s defining singers, including Morgana King, Dolly Parton, Anita O’Day and the late, legendary Lou Rawls, with whom he toured for 16 years as pianist and conductor that ended with Rawl's death.    Clearly, Brooks is keeping company with the Southland’s most creative accompanists. Rather than returning to the torch songs and film-noir inspired standards that defined her early repertoire, she realized that it was time to write her own songs. She likes to embrace an array of musical idioms. “I love Latin influenced music, big band swing, and rich ballads,” she said. “I want to explore the whole spectrum musically.” It’s a quest that has already delivered the musical goods, and that promises treasures to come.  - See more at: https://sylviabrooks.net/

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My Jazz Story

I love jazz because it is our music. These songs are rich. They reach deep down into our souls, and were born from our fathers and grandfathers. I was first exposed to jazz by my father who was a jazz pianist, writer and arranger, so from the day I was brought home from the hospital, I heard this great music in the house. The best show I ever attended was Lena Horne's A Lady And Her Music. It was like nothing I've ever seen before or since. My advice to new listeners—keep your mind and hearts open, and be true to your own voice.

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